First Commercial Cellulosic Ethanol Plant to Begin Production in 2008

Vinod Khosla’s Range Fuels has been given the green light from the state of Georgia to build the first commercial cellulosic ethanol plant in the United States. The Colorado company founded by the Silicon Valley venture capitalist will begin construction of the plant this summer in Treutlen County, Georgia, with production set to start in 2008. Unlike corn-based ethanol, cellulosic ethanol can be made from a variety of biomass matter – from wood chips to grass to cornstalks. It’s the great green hope for ramping up production of ethanol while avoiding the greenhouse gas emissions and agricultural impact of corn ethanol. The catch is the cellulosic approach has been expensive and experimental. Range, however, says it has developed a process that reduces production costs and can make the fuel from wood chips, agricultural wastes, grasses, and cornstalks, hog manure, municipal garbage, sawdust and paper pulp. The first phase of the project, which will make ethanol from "wood waste" from Georgia forests, will produce 20 million gallons of ethanol annually, ramping up to 100 million gallons a year, according to Range.

Meanwhile, late last week E3 BioFuels flipped the switch on what it calls the first "closed loop" corn ethanol plant in Mead, Nebraska. The plant uses biogas produced from cow manure to power the boilers that distill the ethanol. Left over "wet grain" from the ethanol production process is feed to the cattle, which then convert it into…you get the picture.

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13 Responses

While any development on the renewable fuel front is applauded, I have to wonder why suger based ethanol is overlooked. Brazil powers all its cars on the stuff (including cars made in Detroit, by the way). So the technology is readily available now, as is the the fuel source.

It is a wonder why we don’t follow Barzil’s lead on this sugar based ethanol. Perhaps it has something to do with the Feds desires. If I remember clearly, all the sound bytes from Bush were mentioning corn, and then later switch grass.

Or perhaps, the sugar beet farmers already receive enough Fed subsidies that they do not need it as much as the corn growers.

Because the climate in the US isn’t favorable for growing sugar cane, which is the most economical source of sugar-based ethanol. This is why cellulosic ethanol is being pushed, since you can use plants that naturally grow well in our temperate climate. Brazil has a tropical climate where sugar cane thrives. Once cellulosic ethanol becomes mainstream, its cost should be below that of sugar ethanol, since you make it from organic waste materials and low impact grasses.

I thought the whole point of going to alternative sources or biomass (e.g. wood chips, cellulosic materials) over conventional materials (e.g. corn, sugar beets) was to access unused material. In the US, pretty much all corn is already used for other needs, food for us, animals, etc. I’ve seen several reports that indicate that in order to supply our energy needs to any extent we would need the entire US production of cornand then some. Alternative sources are the best hope for this.

I hope this technology works out. They are starting pretty small – 20 million gallons is a fraction of the daily US demand. Hoepfully they can work out the kinks and then scale up. I sure am glad this guy has his money to waste, because Wall Street would generally view this as risky.

The technology for using biomass is new and in its infancy. Corn based ethanol has been produced in the midwest for 20 some years. Yes most corn grow is used for feedstock, but the Federal government pays millions of dollars a year to some farmers to not grow corn. This is inorder to keep prices stable, with rising crop yields.

The rise in corn prices has been a boom to the farmers that haven’t seen increases in years.Many Co-operative farmers are building their own ethanol plants through out the midwest region to meet the higher demands for ethanol.
Eventually greenwaste and plants like switch
grass will compete effectively in their use.

The Cellulosic Ethanol process is more economical than the corn ethanol process. First the cellulose can use anything with fiber in it, corn stalks, wood chips, waste products from paper manufacturing, ect. Thats a new twist on recycling. When you consider all the waste products from the lumber and farming communities this process makes good sense

Switch grass is a perennial, no need for fertilizer or irrigation, and has the potential to produce “1000 gallons of ethanol per acre, compared to 665 gallons for sugarcane and 400 gallons for corn” (per Wikipedia).

As far as sugar beets go, we’re told how many acres we can plant a given season. In fact, in 2006, we had to till under close to 10% of the crop because the beet plant couldn’t process the beets before they would begin to rot.

Does anyone know why (and how) they chose Treutlen County, Georgia as the place to locate the plant. I live in Atlanta and have never heard of this fine county. Was there something specific to the climate and soil or did the state of Georgia and the county of Treutlen offer special incentives?

1 bushel of corn is 56 lbs. 2.8 gal of ethanol is made from each bushel of corn. All the starch in the corn is converted to ethanol leaving 18 lbs of distillers feed. This feed is fed to cows that gain as much or more wt then an = amount of corn. Half of all corn is used for feed. Thus for every 100 bushels of corn being made into ethonal only 68 bushels are lost from feed stock.

The average US farm produces 160 bushels per ac. or 448 gal of ethonal per acre.

About Green Wombat

Green Wombat is written by
Todd Woody, a veteran environmental journalist based in California who writes for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Grist and Yale e360. He's one of the few people on the planet who have held a northern hairy-nosed wombat in the wild.

Todd formerly was a senior editor at Fortune magazine, an assistant managing editor at Business 2.0 magazine and the business editor of the San Jose Mercury News.